Summer SpringServe Updates

In our latest release, we have added detected domains and missed opportunities to reporting, and increased granularity for geo-targeting for your demand tags. We have also added a VAST Tag Tester that can assist in troubleshooting.

Feature Additions

Updated Geo Targeting for Demand Tags

SpringServe has expanded its targeting capabilities on the demand tag level. In addition to Country targeting, you are now able to set more granular parameters, including State, DMA, and City targeting.

As with Country targeting, you can run on either a white or black list for DMA/State/City targeting. When you select White List or Black List, a box will appear and you can type the name of the region that you would like to target.

Using this new feature you can target states and/or US territories, global cities, and DMAs within the United States.

SpringServe Tag Tester

We have developed a VAST Tag Tester, which will prove to be a useful tool for your video business. Head over to tools.springserve.com/tagtest to try it out.

You can use our VAST Tag Tester for troubleshooting tags. In ‘Settings’, enter the export URL in the ‘Tag to Test’ box and select the type of player you would like to test in: Flash or HTML5. You can leave the macros in the tag or you can hard code them. For example, if you have a tag that is on a whitelist, make sure to replace the domain macro with a domain that is allowed. If ‘mydomain.com’ is on your whitelist, and this is your original export tag:

Hit Test Tag and you will be able to see an events tree fill in as an impression is served in the player.

Below the player and the event tree, you can find additional Metadata that may be useful for analysis.

Core Improvements

Demand Tag Video File Uploads

SpringServe now supports the ability to directly upload video files to demand tags. Previously, SpringServe only supported the ability to input a third-party tag as demand. This feature is useful if you have direct advertisers.

Select ‘Direct MP4’ as your demand type and an icon will appear that you can click to upload your video file.

Once the file has been uploaded, you can associate the demand tag to any of your supply tags, regardless of their VPAID setting.

This feature is available to select accounts. If you are interested in adding this feature to your account, please contact Grant.

Detected Domain

Domain Detection

We have added domain detection to our Flash and JS VPAID units. This addition opens the door for detected domain targeting on the demand tag side.

Current SpringServe users see detected domain in MOAT quality reports. MOAT data only records detected domain when there is a supply tag impression. SpringServe has built domain detection into our VPAID unit, so detected domain can now be recorded when there is a supply tag opportunity.

Note that domain detection can only occur when there is a supply tag opportunity. The detected domain is unknown when the request first comes in. The supply tag’s VPAID unit must open to detect the domain of the page. Thus, detected domain is only available when an opportunity is registered.

As of June 24, when you select detected domain as a dimension in your report, you will not see ‘Total Calls’, ‘Requests’, and ‘Blocked’ columns because the detected domain is unknown for these events as explained above.

Domain Reports & Targeting

The ‘Domain’ dimension has been renamed to ‘Declared Domain’ in SpringServe reporting. This is the domain that gets passed by the supply partner via macros. To run domain reports based on the domains your supply parter declares, use the ‘Declared Domain’ dimension.

Domain targeting continues to be based on declared domain. Any domain list you implement will block/allow declared domains. In a future release, we will be adding the ability to target based on detected domain for demand tags.

Reporting Improvements

Missed Opportunities

Another addition to the reporting page is the Missed Opportunities metric. A Missed Opportunity registers when a request passes supply tag targeting but does not pass targeting on any of the demand tags in the waterfall. This metric will help you spot when your supply and demand targeting do not match up. If you see that you have a high number of Missed Opportunities relative to Requests, you should make sure that your targeting is aligned between your supply tag and its demand tag waterfall. This metric is shown in the ‘Full’ views of the main report and Supply Tag Quickstats.

An example of a situation where a Missed Opportunity occurs would be when the supply tag is targeting large players, but the demand tags in the waterfall are targeting small or medium players. It is also possible to see missed opportunities if your supply tag is run of network with no domain targeting, but all your demand tags have whitelist targeting.

In this release, when a missed opportunity registers, the adServer will immediately return an empty VAST response, rather than going through the waterfall waiting for an empty response to be returned. This change will decrease in latency in the SpringServe platform.

UI Improvements

Progress Bar

When you navigate between pages in SpringServe, you will now see a progress bar at the top of the window.